[Are mental disorders on the increase? A systematic review].
OBJECTIVE
In the public opinion as well as in psychiatry, increasing rates of mental disorders have been taken for granted since the 1950s. Usually, social change in the western world is regarded as the main cause of an increase in mental disorders. However, psychiatric epidemiologic studies on which these claims are based are often not suitable to analyse the problem.


METHODS
A systematic review with strict inclusion criteria was undertaken: different study samples had to be analyzed at least at two measurements points with identical study designs.


RESULTS
44 papers were identified which fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Neither general mental disorders nor specific disorders such as depression, anxiety, addictions or eating disorders showed a clearly increasing trend. Child- and adolescent psychiatric disorders also failed to show an increasing trend.


CONCLUSIONS
The assumption of increasing rates of mental disorders since the 1940s that is based on social change cannot be confirmed.
Richter
Dirk
D
LWL-Klinik Münster. dirk.richter@uni-muenster.de
Berger
Klaus
K
Reker
Thomas
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005858:Germany; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012922:Social Change; D012924:Social Conditions; D055815:Young Adult